The Flatwoods Monster Case

[Mystic Wanderer]

Richard Dolan is doing a series of videos on the Flatwoods Monster. If you haven't heard about this, I'm sure you'll enjoy it.

This is PART ONE of a three-part series of interviews with Frank Feschino on the Richard Dolan Show. Feschino provides extensive detail regarding the legendary “Flatwoods Monster” UFO incident of September 12, 1952. This part discusses the astonishing “Shoot Them Down” background to the story. Feschino demonstrates that the Flatwoods event was one of four major incursions of U.S. airspace by unidentified flying objects. These craft were fired upon by the U.S. Air Force.

PART TWO (to be released April 8, 2019 but currently available at richarddolanmembers.com) discusses the details of the forced landing in Flatwoods, West Virginia. This is a step by step walk-through of the incredible event, as well as the lesser known encounter the following day in Framewood, West Virginia. This is where several individuals encountered the being associated with the downed craft.

PART THREE (available only at richarddolanmembers.com) covers the extensive background to Frank Feschino’s 25-year investigation of this extraordinary event.

I'll post part three when he releases it to the public.

[guohua]

WoW, interesting, Thank You @"Mystic Wanderer"

[Wallfire]

If i remember the new TV version of Project Blue book has this story as well. Is it true or a misunderstanding I dont know. I shall watch the videos, and thanks MW  

[BIAD]

One of the intriguing aspects of the Flatwoods incident is that those with a more sceptical mind will break down each individual
detail of the story and with rationally, explain them as a reasonable stand-alone point.

But when viewed as collection of instances, they imply a very strange and unusual event witnessed by several people who have
an invested interest in maintaining social-acceptance in their small community and we must assume that they would rationally evade
ridicule within that community.

The seven direct witnesses did see something unusual on the evening of 12th September 1952 and what we would deem equitable
law-enforcement were also involved to some extent. Could they all have been confused prey to singular commonplace experiences
and interpreted them into a storyline of flying saucers and an alien?

Those involved in the sighting of the alleged craft and the tall being that scared Kathleen May, her two sons Freddy and Edison and
friends -Tommy Hyer, Ronnie Shaver, Neil Nunley and an older boy Eugene Lemon, offered accounts that didn't quite align with each
others.
Verbal testimony has always been unreliable, but mistaking a fifteen-inch Barn owl for a ten-foot tall glowing creature with 'claw-like
hands' demands more than just poor oral dexterity!

The episode in the television series 'Project Bluebook' took some liberties with their version based on the encounter and cannot be
relied on, although the Barn owl-proposition was adhered to from the 'real-world' explanation.

Here's the outline of the Flatwoods Monster case.
......................................................

In the early-evening of September 12th 1952, Sheriff Robert Carr and his Deputy Burnell Long received a telephone call from several
unnamed witnesses that reported a bright and possibly burning object travelling west in the sky over the hills of Braxton County, West
Virginia.

One of the reports implied the object had crashed into the Elk river close to the small town of Gassaway, although no information about
an investigation of that suggestion has ever surfaced.

Around the same time, Freddy (12 years-old) and Edison May (13) were playing football near Flatwoods school with their friend Tommy
Hyer (10), when they observed a bright red-orange object fall from the sky and come to earth on -or near to, a ridge on a property owned
by a farmer Mr. G. Bailey Fisher.

The two brothers and their friend headed to the May's home and told Kathleen May of the strange sighting.
Kathleen accompanied the three boys up a hill to see if there's been some kind of accident and were joined by three boys that also wanted
to know what the bright light was. These were Neil Nunley (14 years-old), Ronnie Shaver (10) and Eugene Lemon (17), who was also a West
Virginia Guardsman.
It's reported that the older boy had brought a torch.

Eugene Lemon had also brought his dog that -when running ahead to the top of the ridge the party were aiming for, scurried back with his
tail between its legs. The dark evening was misty and Mrs. May later commented that there was an unusual metallic smell in the air that
"burned their eyes and noses".

Reaching the apex of the ridge, they noticed a pulsing red light on or near the ground approximately fifty feet to their right and moments
later, Eugene Lemon spotted two smaller lights at the base of a large oak tree. The glowing lights were separated around a foot apart.

Shining the torch towards the tree, Lemon and his company suddenly saw a large 'creature' that hissed and began to float towards the
terrified group. With that, they fled back down the hill to Mrs. May's home.

The description of what they said they saw was:
“A Man-like figure with a round, red face surrounded by a pointed, hood-like shape”.
Brightly lit red "eyes" bright red face, bright green clothing, a head which resembled the ace of spades, and clothing which, from the waist
down, hung in great folds."

Reaching her house, Kathleen May rang Sheriff Carr and before leaving the office, Sheriff Carr had contacted Reporter A. Lee Stewart, of
the Braxton Democrat newspaper and together they travelled to the May home. Arriving there, the two men discovered that the boys had
also used the telephone.
Now a large group of kids waited in the yard of Kathleen May in hope of seeing the 'Flatwoods Monster'!

The co-owner of the local newspaper interviewed the witnesses in a group and Stewart later stated that the observers were extremely
frightened by what they had encountered. Afterwards, Sheriff Carr and Mr. Stewart asked Eugene Lemon to take them to the exact spot
where the alleged 'alien' had been seen.

As the trio approached the location, they noticed a sickening, burnt, metallic odor still lingering in the air. As the Reporter later wrote:
("Metallic" being like the smell of a burned out vacuum tube in the back of an old-style TV set). But nothing unusual was observed.

Investigating the site the next day, Mr. Stewart found two lengthy tracks on the ground, gouges and traces of a thick, black liquid on
tree leaves and on the soil around the location. He then proceeded to interview the witnesses singularly.

In the days ahead, several of the group became ill with Eugene Lemon seemingly the sickest.
The young man exhibited ike the others, nose and throat irritations. But Eugene also experienced vomiting and convulsions and his
throat difficulties continued for weeks.

On the same day the Reporter of the Braxton Democrat was searching for clues on the hillside, a couple in an automobile near
Frametown, West Virginia reported a direct encounter with an alien being that seemed to be moving about near a landed UFO.

The unnamed man found that his automobile engine had died and got out of the car to examine the problem.
After noticing the light in the woods, he made an attempt to get closer but felt strange physical effects the closer he came.
A sickening smell began to dominate. Forced to abandon the attempt, he made it back to his car just before a weird creature
showed up.

While inside the automobile trying to seek protection, the couple saw the being come up to the car. It seemed to be standing
inside a bucket-shaped apparatus as in Flatwoods but with the top section removed exposing the humanoid entity.
The being eventually retreated and the couple reported seeing the UFO lift off and head out of sight.


Eugene Lemon and Kathleen May.                                                                                               Freddie May today.
......................................................

So what happened? Single instances that can be manipulated into a continuous account of meeting an angry space-alien or
just a collective wild imagination brought on by being in a 'spooky' situation at an unusual hour?

Lots of people saw a light in the sky.

A few observed a pulsing light on the ridge of the hill, which was later suggested was a hazard-light for aircraft. But wouldn't
the residents of Flatwoods already have known that?!

Some saw a ten foot-tall Barn owl with glowing -greenish eyes, claw-like hands, a blood-red face and no beak. It's true that
when suddenly frightened, a person can 'enhance' the size of the object causing the fear. But from fifteen inches to ten feet tall...?

The strange aroma would have been identified as something mundane by those living in the area, but wasn't.

What was the thick-black 'goo' found on the leaves and ground...? Is it something standard for that area of West Virginia?

What caused the ailments of the West Virginia Guardsman and a couple of his co-witnesses and why on that particular evening?
......................................................

So many questions unanswered.

[Wallfire]

And here is another take on the story

Today we tackle a terrifying tale of an alien encounter that goes by many names: "The Braxton County Monster", "The Sutton Monster", "The Green Monster" and "The Phantom of Flatwoods," just to name a few. Growing up as I did in nearby Kanawha County, I had always heard the tale told using the Braxton County Monster moniker, so that's what I'll keep using here to avoid confusion. The story goes that in the evening of September 12th, 1952 seven witnesses saw a light from the sky land in the hills outside the town of Flatwoods, West Virginia, and when they went to investigate they came upon a being which frightened them to their very core. So was the Braxton County Monster a true case of an alien encounter in the hills of West Virginia? Or did a confluence of unlikely events lead to a group getting the fright of their lives?

The Night of the Sighting
Even contemporary reports made within days of the incident vary in some details of the actual event, but most agree roughly on the following points. Around 7:15pm several local boys (reports differ on exactly how many there were and their identities) were playing football at the nearby elementary school. They noticed a bright light streak across the sky and over a hill, seeming to touch down on the property of the farm owned by a Mr. Bailey Fischer. The boys then raced to the home of Kathleen May, a local beautician and mother of Edison and Fred, possibly two of the boys playing football, to report their sighting of a UFO. The group recruited a few more local boys, including 17-year-old national guardsman Eugene Lemon and his dog. The group, now made up of, Kathleen May, Eugene 'Gene' Lemon (17), Neil Nunley (14), Teddie Neal (13), Edison 'Eddie' May (13), Fred 'Freddy' May (12), Ronnie Shaver (10), and possibly Tommy Hyer (10), headed outside of town and up the hill towards the farm.
Upon cresting the hill to a ridge, they were engulfed in a malodorous mist and spotted a pulsing red light emitting from a ball-shaped object hovering just above the ground. Gene's dog growled at something to their left side, where whomever was holding the flashlight, reports differ, immediately pointed the beam. What the light fell upon was terrible to behold. A large creature, between seven and 12 tall, stood hovering next to a nearby oak tree. It appeared to be wearing some sort of green armor, and a black cowl shaped like a spade from a playing card over it's blood read head and bright glowing red eyes. Some of the witnesses reported seeing two claw-like hands near the creature's head, one of which may have been holding a device. Upon seeing the group, the being let out a shrill hiss and started towards them in a slow gliding motion.
The group, gripped with terror, ran headlong down the hill back into town, whereupon they immediately called Braxton County Sheriff Robert Carr. The sheriff was not at his station in nearby Sutton, because he had been called out to investigate a plane crash reported by Woodrow Eagle, who had also seen a light in the sky disappear into the mountains along the Elk River south of Gassaway. By the time Sheriff Carr was able to make it to Flatwoods, local newspaperman A. Stewart Lee of the Braxton Democrat was also on the scene. While the entire group of witnesses was visibly shaken, Gene worked up the nerve to lead a gun-toting posse back to the scene to investigate. The craft and the creature were gone, all that remained was a faint sulfuric odor, some track marks in the grass, and some oily residue along with bits of a black rubber-like substance. In the aftermath of the event, several members of the group described suffering from irritation and swelling of the nose and throat, followed by vomiting and convulsions for another few weeks. These were said to be symptoms of exposure to mustard gas and were attributed to the mist surrounding the area the craft and creature had been spotted in. Whatever had happened, it had clearly make an impact, both emotionally and physiologically, on the witnesses.
Possible Explanations
UFO investigators, Gray Barker, who actually grew up in Braxton County, and naturalist Ivan T. Sanderson both went to Flatwoods to research the events of September 12th, with Sanderson arriving as early as September 18th. They explored the site, interviewed witnesses, and wrote reports of their findings that were later published. They both concluded that the group had encountered an extraterrestrial craft and it's occupant. In the case of Sanderson's 36 page report, he states that, "at least five objects came over traveling in a straight line from Northwest to Southeast..." Several of the crafts crashed and were never recovered, but one craft landed outside Flatwoods and its occupant was able to exit the ship while wearing a protective suit before the craft disintegrated. More skeptical thinking from the time includes several possible alternative explanations: a school teacher suggested that a "combination of the light from a nearby plane beacon and the fiery trail of the blazing meteor reflected in some manner to take the shape of a glowing monster." Another, supposedly put forth by a noted scientist, said that if the meteor broke up over Flatwoods, a piece could have fallen to the ground, disintegrating into vapor that might rise up in the form of a monster. Still others suggested that the apparition was a religious sign sent by god. Finally, a cheese company in Wisconsin wondered if everything could have been caused by an inflated rubber cow which had been launched about ten days before as a publicity stunt. Sanderson rejected all of these explanations, and I think it's safe for us to do so as well.
The Skeptical Approach
Our first goal when looking critically at an event like this is to determine if the event in question actually occurred. In this instance it seems reasonable to surmise that it did. There was definitely something in the skies over West Virginia that night, and a group of seven did go up a hill and get the fright of their lives. The happenstance style of the group's formation does not seem to fit the pattern of a hoax. Our next task is to see if the group's interpretation of what they saw that night, namely, an alien being and its craft, is the most parsimonious explanation given the known facts of the case.
Chronologically, the first thing that needs to be explained is the sighting of something in the sky. It is important to remember that this sighting took place in between Kenneth Arnold's report of seeing unidentified crafts from his plane dubbed by the media as "flying saucers" and the eve of the Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union. People were looking to the heavens expecting to see 'something' more than ever before. A meteor overheard was indeed reported that same night in at least three states (West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Maryland). Since the object was sighted prior to Sputnik 1's launch in 1957, it is unlikely that the craft was a terrestrial rocket launched from Earth. However, the assumption that there were five ships flying in formation is based on the idea that they were relatively low to the ground. Another interpretation is that one meteor entered Earth's atmosphere, glowing red hot as it was heated by friction from the air, and was seen across an entire region. due to a lack of frame of reference, it was thought to be much lower to the ground than it actually was. Thus, the downed airplane reported by Woodrow Eagle may have been the same object spotted in Flatwoods by the boys playing football.
Next, we need to explain the sulfuric mist and the pulsing red globe, both of which occurred around the same time. The mist part is simple enough: the Appalachian mountains often have fog. The fog can roll in on a cool evening and last until morning. I've flown out of the airport in Charleston and seen channels of fog that look like rivulets of white water pulsing through every valley and holler. The weather report for Braxton County called for evening fog the same week this year in September that the incident occurred in 1952. The sulfur smell is more troubling. Gunpowder, and some versions of solid rocket fuel, do contain sulfur; but for an interstellar or even an interplanetary craft, chemical fuel would be a horribly inefficient method for traversing the spaceways. From a more earthbound perspective, West Virginia is home to a number of different natural sulphur springs: Green Sulphur Springs, White Sulphur Springs, and Blue Sulphur Springs, amongst others in the state and surrounding areas. I think it's reasonable that a nearby but unknown cave or spring could have produced the odor reported by the witnesses. Why it was so strong when they were there but lesso later could be due to their heightened awareness brought on by the fear of what they might encounter chasing after a crashed UFO. As to the pulsing red globe, there are three airplane beacons in the Flatwoods area, which each produce a bright red signal to help alert and guide nearby aircraft. Being turned around in unfamiliar woods coupled with a loss of perspective, it's possible that a beacon on a nearby hill was interpreted as hovering right before them.
Lastly, we have the being itself. Either the group truly did see the monster as described, or something more mundane, interpreted via the lens of fright, was responsible. In this case, investigator for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry Joe Nickell has suggested that what the group saw may have been a barn owl. The creature was spotted near a tree, and being perched on a branch seven to 12 feet off the ground may have given the illusion of great height, with foliage beneath it representing the green body. Given the time of day, an owl would just be getting active and ready for the hunt. While male barn owls typically have white faces, females can be more reddish-brown in plumage, and had a flashlight shined in her face, her eyes would have definitely glowed in the darkness. Startled and annoyed, she may have taken flight from her branch, and cried out at the intruders in her territory. Rather than the gentle hoo-ing we tend to associate with owls, a barn owl's cry sounds quite different and scary.
I think that in their situation I would have been running down the hill back to town right beside them. Afterwards, investigators found track marks at the site of the encounter and even though local boy Max Lockard admitted to driving his Chevy truck up to and around the area hoping to see something himself, the paranormal investigators instead concluded that the tracks, oily residue, and bits of a rubbery substance must have been left by the creature and not the truck. As to the strange illness amongst some of the witnesses? These symptoms are consistent with hysteria and over-exertion. We need not invoke alien mustard gas.
I will admit that the odds of all these events occurring over the course of an evening are unlikely, but is it any more unlikely than a series of five alien craft from another world visiting and crashing to earth in a single night without any physical evidence left behind for us to examine? To me it seems like each element of the story has a plausible explanation given the circumstances, timing, and geography of the event. I have no doubt that everyone involved in witnessing the craft and creature were being honest in their testimony, but anxiety and fright could have colored their interpretation of normal, yet still scary, events into something truly fantastic.

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